Chapter 58
Severin
THE BOARD MEMBERS REMAIN SILENT even after Maeve has left the chamber.
The energy from her sphere still hovers subtly in the room, making the hair on my arms and neck stand on end.
I stare at the space she occupied in the center of the room.
The brilliant white light of her energy sphere is gone, but the image of it—of Maeve guiding it, a furrow in her brow, a reflection of light sparkling in her violet eyes—remains burned into my memory.
Like she’s the sun, and I couldn’t help but to stare.
“Exceptional containment,” one of the board members says.
Professor Azula makes an approving sound. “Yes. She’s worked hard this term.”
“It shows,” the other board member adds, a tinge of satisfaction coloring her tone.
They continue to speak—the man remarks that they have much to discuss before making their final decision, and Moonhart says she expects great things from Maeve.
I don’t participate in the conversation. Because deep inside my chest, my bond with Maeve burns with passionate heat.
For weeks it has felt raw, frayed, on the verge of snapping completely. And I thought that was what I wanted. But now, as it flares bright inside me, I admit that it’s become one of my greatest fears.
Whatever happens, I don’t want to lose this. I don’t want to lose her. And I need her to know that, regardless of what she chooses to do. I need to give her the choice, rather than making it for her.
The bond pulls, causing me to draw a small breath as my chest tightens.
It feels like . . . an invitation.
And I know with certainty that Maeve is calling for me, reaching through what remains of our tattered connection, beckoning me toward her.
“Severin?”
I tear my gaze from the center of the room and shift it to Headmistress Moonhart, who’s looking at me with a curious expression, one pale eyebrow arched. “Are you unwell?”
No. Yes. But not in the way she thinks.
I draw myself up. “It was a long first semester, Headmistress. I’m simply tired.”
“Mm.” She purses her lips, and I’m unsure if she believes me. She has an uncanny way of seeing through people whether they want her to or not. “Well, do try to rest over the holiday.”
“I’ll do my best.”
I incline my head toward her, Azula, and the board members politely, then excuse myself from the chamber.
And my feet know exactly where to carry me, guided by the thread thrumming in my chest, like a compass pointing to my true north: furtuna mea.
To my storm.
I navigate the near-empty corridors. Winter light pours in through the stained glass windows, and somewhere far away, a door clicks closed, the sound echoing through the hallways.
A feeling of surrender washes over me as I make it to the stairs that will lead me up to the Skyreach Spire.
How many times have I thought of her while climbing these stairs?
How many times have I sparred with her on the tower, watched the moonlight glint off her hair, wished I could be hers and so much more?
With each step I climb, I realize that every moment in Maeve’s presence has changed me. She has woken me up from my centuries-long slumber, has made me hunger for life in a way I thought I never would again.
And yet I may already have lost her.
By the time I reach the top of the stairwell, my heart is pounding with anticipation. I can feel her on the other side of the door, just as I’m sure she can feel me.
My fingers wrap around the door handle, and it’s already warm, no doubt from Maeve’s lingering touch. I draw a breath and open the door.
Sunlight and cold air wrap around me as I step onto the frosted tower, snow crunching under my boots. Maeve stands in the center of the spire, her long hair hanging loose, dancing on the breeze as it swirls around her. She turns when the door clicks closed behind me. Our eyes meet.
And for a moment, I feel weightless, suspended in time. She’s cosmic that way, as if the planets would alter their courses just to orbit around her.
Neither of us speaks. It feels nearly unbearable. In my chest, the bond strains, begging me to close the distance to her, flickering in a way it hasn’t since we parted all those weeks ago.
Maeve gives me a small smile. “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she says. Her voice soothes me, fills in the cracks that’ve started fracturing inside me from this distance between us.
“I will always come.” The words slip from me without needing to be considered. Because it’s the truth. If Maeve calls for me, if Maeve needs me, I am hers. Completely.
She presses her lips together and regards me with those dark violet eyes. Her scent—like sage and a summer storm—floats around me, mingling with the cold winter air.
“I’ve been angry with you,” she says.
I don’t respond. I let her speak.
Her gaze doesn’t leave mine as she continues. “After I left your office, I thought I’d done the right thing. But . . .” Her fingers rise to touch her chest, right where I feel our bond beneath my own ribs. “But the right thing shouldn’t hurt like this.” She frowns, her forehead furrowing.
I feel it too. The pain, the yearning, the unquenchable thirst.
Maeve’s eyes narrow. I feel her storm stirring in our bond, as if I’m the one with magic in my veins.
“But what I said that day hasn’t changed. I don’t need you to protect me, Severin. What I need is for you to see me, to respect my choices. You can’t choose my path. Only I can do that.”
Her hand drops from her chest, fingers curling into a fist at her side.
And I know now that it’s my turn to speak, to tell her the truth that’s been battering at my throat, trying so hard to come out. She deserves to know. All of it.
I step forward, though there’s still enough distance between us that I can’t yet reach out and touch her.
“You’re right,” I say.
The bond thrums with her surprise. Her eyes widen just a fraction.
“Out of my own fear, I confused protection with possession.” I hold her gaze. “But I know I can never possess you, Maeve. Storms refuse containment, after all.”
I can tell she wants to smile, but she resists. I continue.
“I feared losing you. I feared what the bond would do to you. Your future is yours, and I worried that I was commandeering it, steering it to my will.”
She gives a quick shake of her head. “You’re wrong,” she says, taking a step toward me.
“That’s where you need to stop.” Her voice is softer now but no less powerful.
“Believing you have the ability to commandeer my life just shows that you don’t think I have control over my own destiny.
And in a way, I don’t. There’s only so much I can do to guide my life forward.
But you need to trust me, Severin. You need to let me make my own choices, regardless of whether you think they’re good for me or not.
Even if it means making mistakes.” Her lips press into a firm line.
“If you can’t do that, it means you can’t see me as my own person. ”
Her words land with quiet conviction, cutting through the walls we’ve both built up. I draw a long breath and let it out in a sigh that steams from my lips.
“You’ve never needed saving, Maeve,” I say softly.
“I see that now. I see you.” My gaze meets hers.
“I will always want to protect you—so long as I draw breath—but I know you don’t need it.
And I know trying to restrain you is not the same thing as loving you.
Loving you”—I take one more step, the snow crunching beneath my boots—“means standing beside you as you become exactly who you wish to be.”
The wind stirs around us, making Maeve’s hair and cloak flutter. She tips her head back to meet my eyes. “And if who I’m meant to be,” she says slowly, “is someone who chooses you? What then?”
My thirst flares, clawing at my throat. Her scent is all around me now, but I push it aside to focus on her. And there’s only one response I can give her.
“Then I will spend the rest of my existence striving to be worthy of that choice.”
Her eyes narrow. I feel a challenge rising in the bond. “I don’t want half of you. Choosing you means choosing all of you. I don’t want distance and to wonder what you’re holding back from me. I want truth. I want an equal partnership. I want to make choices together.”
That word makes the bond pulse, and we both catch our breath.
“Can you agree to that?” Maeve asks.
It doesn’t take me long to consider it. I’ve already been over this in my own head—hundreds of times now, if not thousands. I’ve spent too many sleepless nights lying awake, imagining this exact conversation.
“I see the mistakes I made,” I whisper. “And I won’t make them again.” I steel myself. I have to tell her. She needs to know. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”
Maeve’s gaze sharpens, but she says nothing. She waits, head canting slightly to one side.
I draw a breath. And I don’t look away as I say, “The blood bond . . . If it fuses permanently, if I continue to feed from you, it will change you.”
She arches one brow.
My fists tighten at my sides. “It may extend your lifespan. Beyond what a human life should be. Though I don’t know by how long.” I shake my head once, frustrated at my lack of knowledge, angry with myself for not knowing with certainty what this could mean for her.
At first, Maeve doesn’t react. She just looks at me, searching my face, as if trying to determine if she heard me correctly.
“I’m sorry for not telling you before.” My words come out quiet, a whisper that’s almost carried away on the winter wind.
Maeve exhales slowly, her breath steaming around her mouth. “That’s why you pulled away?”
I give a single nod. “I wanted to protect you.”
“You should have told me.” There’s no anger in her voice, though if there were, I know I’d be deserving of it.
I incline my head. “Yes. There’s much I’d do differently if I could.”
She studies me for a long moment, something thoughtful and steady settling into her violet gaze.
I can almost see the shift happening, see how she turns the truth over in her mind, weighing it, considering it: a longer life, a different life from one she ever expected.
She lets out a breath. Quietly, she says, “Thank you for telling me now. I . . . I need to think about it. About what that means for me.”
I’m relieved to hear those words. I nod once. “Of course.”
The furrow in her brow softens—like she’s made peace with holding the weight of that possibility rather than trying to make sense of it too quickly.
And when she lifts her hand to touch my cheek, I feel an overwhelming desire to fall to my knees before her, the burden of withholding this information from her finally gone from my shoulders.
“You don’t look good,” she whispers. One of her thumbs touches the soft spot beneath my eye, which I know is ringed in black. “What happened?”
I place my hand over the top of hers, pressing her palm into the stubble I never shaved off. Once again, I tell her the truth, let it slip right off the tip of my tongue. “I was parted from you.”
A small smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. She lifts her free hand and places it on my other cheek. She stares into my eyes for a moment before pushing up onto her toes. For a fleeting second, we hesitate, breath mingling in the cold air. Every muscle in my body coils in anticipation.
Then she kisses me.
She tastes of snow and storms. As soon as my lips meet hers, I melt against her, softening like the sand that’s carried away when waves kiss the shore. My arms loop around her waist, and I lift her feet off the ground, crushing her body to mine.
Our bond rejoices, warming me from the inside out, chasing away the cold trying to steal my heat.
Maeve wraps her arms around my neck and breaks our kiss for just long enough to whisper, “I’ve missed you.”
Slowly, I set her back down, but I keep my hands on her waist, my forehead pressed to hers. “I’ve been lost without you,” I say. “And I never want to be lost like that again.”
The winter wind skates across the tower, tugging at Maeve’s hair and cloak, but between us, there is only warmth.
Her hands remain wrapped around my neck, her fingers playing with the hair at my nape, like she’s not yet ready to step away. And after weeks of distance, I feel the same. I’m like a drowning man, clawing for the surface of the sea, and she’s finally given me a breath of air.
Then, from far below the tower, a whistle sounds, and Maeve startles at the sound.
“Oh no,” she says quickly, blinking as if coming slowly out of a trance. “I’m supposed to be getting my things packed. I have a carriage on the way.”
The thought of being parted from her again makes pain lance through me, cold and sharp. But I resist the urge to trap Maeve in my arms and never let her go.
“Of course,” I say, taking a step back from her.
But she reaches out and snags my hand, twining her fingers through mine. “Where are you spending the holiday?”
I gesture with my free hand to the castle behind us. “Here.”
“Do you have any plans?”
I shake my head once, unsure where she’s going with this. It’s not as if she can spend the holiday here with me, nor I with her. Though I desperately wish that weren’t the case.
A small smile pulls her lips up. “Then I have an idea.” Her voice is soft and edged with a mixture of nervousness and excitement. It piques my curiosity.
“And what idea is that?” I ask, trailing my thumb across her hand.
But she just blinks her violet eyes and says, “It’s a surprise.”
Part of me wants to push for answers—I’ve never much liked surprises—but another part of me, the part that softens in Maeve’s presence, is content to sit back and allow her to surprise me.
“Do you trust me?” she asks.
It’s the easiest question she could’ve asked me.
I pull her in once more, pressing a kiss to her lips. And as I pull away, I whisper, “Always.”